<p>Yayverily, my son is doing great. The best choice he ever made was to quit college and spend some time in the work world, and the best choice I ever made was to lay down very specific requirements for continued support and cut off the flow of $$ when he opted not to meet those requirements. (It wasn't failure on his part, it was a choice). My son has been entirely self-supporting since the age of 20; he is graduating this year with excellent prospects for employment, and less than $2K in outstanding student loans, which he intends to pay off immediately after graduation, even before interest starts to accrue. So I'm better off financially and so is he. </p>
<p>But the point is.... despite the parents on this thread who keep proclaiming that their kids tell them everything while at the same time lording it over everyone else how much they respect their kid's "privacy".... some of us have kids whose notion of "privacy" means that they don't tell their parents everything. I don't expect my kids to tell me everything; I do expect that if I am paying for college then I will see the information that will go on transcripts, and I am quite happy to get that directly from the registrar's office. That gives me objective, no-excuses type of information -- again, the same sort of info that would be part of any other financial aid process.</p>
<p>^mini--with >7,000 posts to your name, there is no doubt you will have the last word here.</p>
<p>I sincerely hope that by the time my CHILD is 35, he will no longer be my dependent. If he is, and he is still/again attending college and by some strange quirk of fate I am paying for it, then yes, I would like to see his grade report, and apparently FERPA gives me that right (today). We'll find out if any of this comes true in 2023--stay tuned to CC.</p>
<p>If you don't want to see the grades of your 35-year-old offspring, then that is your choice and I certainly respect that. What each parent chooses to do is his/her choice, within the framework of what the law grants us as our legal rights.</p>
<p>I have great trust in my S--no need to feel sad for me.</p>
<p>calmom, glad to hear everything turned out well!</p>
<p>The logical fallacies are amazing. (Post 100, and some others: "Because" parents either passively or actively participate in transcript review, "therefore" their children do not have "trusting relationships" with them, and --further-- "therefore" parents are using a college to "make up for that [supposed] defiicency.")</p>
<p>mini, logic is not your strong suit. And unfortunately you are not the only poster here in that category.</p>
<p>I also think that parents who believe their children (of any age) tell them EVERYTHING, are naive. (And do you tell your spouse literally <em>everything</em>?) They may tell you almost everything, but most people, especially adolescents, like at least a little privacy, and not always for nefarious or suspect reasons. Most often it's because of a difference in perception between what they genuinely believe a parent needs to know & what a parent in fact needs to know. (quite apart from grades or academics)</p>
Please don't assume that you know what other parents "would like". </p>
<p>I really like the level of respect and independence that exists in my family. I don't expect my kids to tell me everything that goes on in their lives and that's fine with me. I don't tell them everything going on my life, either. </p>
<p>It has nothing to do with "trust". On the contrary, I love and respect my kids enough to understand why they may sometimes elect to withhold information or try to resolve problems that come up in their lives without involving their parents. </p>
<p>Part of the way that my kids have established "trust" is when they choose to grant me access to sources of information about them -- if they had something to hide, they wouldn't do that. My son chooses to support himself, keep his academic records private, and let me have access to his banking records & email. (I never asked - he just sometimes has found it convenient to have me check on things for him when he's been traveling and didn't have internet access). My d. keeps her email private, but shares a bank account with me and gives me access to academic records in exchange for my paying the bill that comes from the bursar. I don't see where there is a "trust" problem simply because they opt to allow me direct access to records.</p>
<p>I was responding to your post in which you specifically claimed that your son wasn't telling you what you needed to know, and wished that the college had given you the information that your son didn't. I, for one, wish that your son had given you that information. If he had wanted to give you access to his records, he certainly had that option. </p>
<p>Thank heavens my kids don't tell me EVERYTHING. (And quite frankly, I wish my younger one would tell me less!)</p>
[quote]
"I think at most schools, it would be logical to assume that most students--at least most freshmen--are still dependents for tax purposes."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>mini:
[quote]
Most students - including most freshman nationwide - are NOT dependents for tax purposes, including the vast majority of those discharged from military service. These are no longer "non-traditional" students. Statistically, the 18-year-olds are the exceptions.
[/quote]
</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Please note that I did acknowledge the fact that different universities and colleges have very different characters, very different missions, and very different student bodies--and, hence, the default procedure might be best tailored to the particular school.</p></li>
<li><p>Data, please, for 4-year institutions.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>mini:
[quote]
But I do think it is true that many parents don't have as trusting a relationship with their "children" as they would like. I think that is sad...but I hardly think it is role of the university to assist them in making up for that deficiency.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, if "sad" is the best you can muster for a problem that disproportionately affects lower socioeconomic kids and minorities with little family tradition of higher education, I am left a bit frustrated. I agree there is not, nor should there be, a statutory "role" for universities to "assist" parents in establishing a trusting relationship with their offspring, but it would be helpful if more universities responded to the needs of the least privileged members of the student body and their families by not pretending to be taking a by-the-book legalistic position when all they are really doing is saving a few bucks on postage.</p>
<p>Of course, as calmom has laid out very clearly, the problem of freshmen getting lost is not just one of class/experience/money. It seems like a big waste to me not to take the simple proactive step of letting parents know if their dependent offspring need help/advice/reminders.</p>
<p>I doubt that any poster on this thread has a kid any more independent than my oldest. If he can withstand the torture of knowing there will be a written note saying the same thing he already told us on the phone, then I imagine the horror can be survived by other students also.</p>
<p>Well, Mini, it wasn't a matter of "trust", it was a matter of "denial". My son was "in denial" over the seriousness of his academic difficulties, and his college apparently helped foster that state of denial by renewing his merit scholarship and failing to place him on academic probation. Since you deal with substance abuse in your work, surely you must be familiar with that concept. </p>
<p>I don't think for a minute that my son intended to deceive me or take money from me. I think he kept telling himself that his problem was fixable. </p>
<p>The problem is that at age 18 and 19, my son was still immature. From a neurological perspective, the prefrontal region of the brain doesn't mature fully until early to mid 20's, which tends to leave older teens without the capacity to exercise fully adult-level judgment, planning, and appreciation of consequences in their lives, even if the law says they are adults. (Mini, since they are "adults" at age 18, do you think the drinking age should be lowered? If not, why should they be granted full adult privileges and rights in all respects except drinking? )</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with "trust". I don't think my son lied to me; I think he lied to himself, all the while digging a deeper academic hole. (Part of the problem was that his LAC had a practice of giving students evaluations but not grades, but recording grades on a transcript --my son shared at least one seemingly favorable "evaluation" his first year that was written by a teacher who assigned a D for the course. So it is quite possible that my son hadn't checked some of his grades, either).</p>
<p>But that's why parental access to third-party information makes sense. Kids who are in trouble are the ones most likely to be in a state of denial -- they don't always know that they need to be asking for help. Meanwhile, there's a clock running and deadlines passing -- things that really are fixable at point A but not so easily repaired 6 months or a year down the line. </p>
<p>I love my son; he's not perfect. He also has a tendency to forget to pay bills-- so when mail comes to my house addressed to him, I open it, and if he owes money somewhere, I email him right away so that he can take care of it. These aren't bills he can't pay -- he's very frugal and probably now has more ready cash in the bank than any other family member. I mean things like a bill for $12 on some credit card that turns into a bill for $42 because of the $30 late fee. I could respect his privacy more and simply forward him all the mail unopened.... but then there would be even more late fees.</p>
<p>well I think then that because the brain isn't all mature at 18/19 then there should be no military service until people are 25, no marriage, no credit cards, no rental of hotel rooms, etc.</p>
<p>And why NOT let a bill not get paid ontime...let him pay that extra 30 dollars...a few times of having to remember on his own will do him some good</p>
<p>do you plan on doing that when he is 30, 40? Seriouslly....</p>
<p>And the brain excuse is getting old, you have millions of 18 19 year olds who take care of business, work 40 hours a week, some are raising siblings, some are working AND going to school</p>
<p>Yeah, but all kids are different--all people are different. A caring parent probably has a better handle on what his/her child needs than anyone else can. Granted that we sometimes over- or under-protect, but what works for one family doesn't work for another.</p>
<p>What would happen if calmom didn't remind her son to pay the bill? He would get a late charge. And so? He would have to pay the late charge. And very likely having to do that a couple of times, and he wouldn't need to be reminded.</p>
<p>This is where accountability comes into play.</p>
<p>CGM, since my son has been entirely self-supporting, and living on his own, since age 20, I don't need your slippery-slope "until he's 30" argument. As long as he is moving around and using my home address as his "permanent" mailing address, I'll open mail that comes here and tell him about it. I do that because I'm a nice person. If a letter from a creditor came here addressed to my ex-husband, who is in his 50's, I'd do the same. I'm not going to play trivial little games over "responsibility" and "teaching lessons"; I've forgotten a few bills and incurred a few late charges in my lifetime as well. I can see from the return address on the envelope that its a bill -- if the situation were reversed I would want to know about it. I'm not paying the bill for him - I'm just letting him know it has arrived.</p>
<p>I find it amazing all the parents here who have perfect children who don't need any help whatsoever. Except that then I see the same parents posting in other threads all in a panic over some incident or another involving their kid. </p>
<p>I used to be a lawyer and I sometimes got calls in the middle of night from perfect parents of perfect children who needed my advice after their perfect child had been arrested. Sometimes things were kind of messed up because the perfect parents of the perfect children only found out about the arrests well after the fact, when they received a notice to appear in court in the mail (despite the fact that these perfect kids always told their parents everything).</p>
<p>Everyone is always so smug and self-righteous until the day that their perfect kid runs into some sort of problem that isn't so easy to deal with. (Of course, then it is always someone else's fault -- the smug, self-righteous parents of perfect kids who do no wrong don't seem able to comprehend the idea that it is o.k. for kids to be less-than-perfect, and o.k. for their less-than-perfect parents to help out on an ad hoc basis.).</p>
<p>Maybe because of my legal background I'm a lot more skeptical. I heard every excuse and every story in the book from my clients, and I figured that my offspring were human, too, and likely to make mistakes and follow that up with excuses and rationalizations. And I also figure that they don't always know everything or even know to anticipate certain problems or issues. So I give my kids a lot of freedom but I also keep my eyes open for potential problems.</p>
<p>"He also has a tendency to forget to pay bills-"</p>
<p>that is were I took my information from- it isn't about moving or anything, he forgets and you remind him, that is what you said...</p>
<p>my kids are in no way perfect, but if they had a tendency to forget bills, I would let them pay that late fee...that is how they, gasp, would remember to pay their bills</p>
<p>My son doesn't live at home so if a bill comes to my house, by definition it hasn't gone to him. Maybe that's the part you didn't get. Since he has moved around a lot, he has chosen to continue to use my home address as his "permanent" address, which seems to me to be a logical choice.</p>